The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has established a committee of 35 members to formulate teaching and learning materials and curriculum content on subjects like political science, sociology, psychology, geography and history for grades 6 to 12. This comes after the NSTC, consisting of 19 members, had been notified in July to conclude the curriculum, textbooks and learning materials for these classes. The newly established Curricular Area Group (CAG) for Social Science will be chaired by Michel Danino, a visiting professor at IIT-Gandhinagar.
The NSTC is set to have a minimum of 11 Curricular Area Groups across various subjects. These CAGs have already been formed for social sciences, Indian knowledge systems (IKS) and new pedagogy and learning materials. NCERT is in the process of finalising textbook content drawn from NCF developed earlier by the committee. NCERT is also revising the syllabus to suit the NEP 2020. The deadline for submitting the syllabus to NSTC and NCERT is November 25, 2023.
The NCERT notification stated that in order to guarantee continuity with Grades 3-5, interdisciplinarity across topics, and the incorporation of cross-cutting themes in Social Science, this Group will also cooperate with the Preparatory Stage CAG and with other CAGs as needed.
Furthermore, it added, “Given the need for vertical and horizontal linkages and integration across disciplines in Social Sciences, both the CAGs- Social Science and Economics will ensure this integration by sharing and discussing drafts of material prepared with each other. The timeline for submitting Handbooks for Teachers to NSTC and NCERT is 25 February 2024.”
Among the 35-panel members are notable individuals, such as Sanjeev Sanyal (a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India) Banabina Brahma (Associate Professor at Kokrajhar Government College, Assam), MD Srinivas (Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies in Chennai), Mazhar Asif (Centre of Persian and Central Asian Studies at JNU), Heeraman Tiwari (Professor and Chairperson at the Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU), Javaid Iqbal Bhat (Assistant Professor at the University of Kashmir), and Commodore Dr. Odakkal Johnson (Retd.) (Former Director of Maritime History Society), among several others.
Source: News18